Dana Stamps, II

July 2025 | nonfiction

Why I Hate to Read

Trimming a bonsai tree is probably better entertainment. Listening to good music, from classical to jazz to rock-n-roll, is so much better that I cannot overestimate the difference. Watching television is even more addictive nowadays with YouTube’s endless gobbledygook. Looking at paintings at MOCA, or at my local Art Walk, is much better than reading. Read this. I simply don’t like to read, even a little bit—plain fact.

And, since for many readers, this anti-reading confession of mine hits too close to the wobbly eyeballs, let me just say, though, that I like to have read most of what I reluctantly read. That is, I like to have the knowledge that comes with reading, the erudite vocabulary, for example. I like to learn new ways of punctuating sentences, too, and especially of complicating sentences. Or fragmenting them. I even like learning about crap I wouldn’t otherwise care about. Work?

Reading is work, period. You see, I grew up watching TV, lots of “I Love Lucy,” and funny movies starring Eddie Murphy. Reading was something that teachers made you do, not something you did for pleasure. The movie The Matrix has its characters learn jujitsu and how to fly a helicopter instantly, with no reading required. I would sign up for that.

But if I must read, poetry is my favorite. I started my latest poetry book, a longish anthology, at the end, reading backwards, poem by poem, so the experience wouldn’t seem a chore, fooling myself (almost) that the obligation is not a whole book, but just one poem, then done. Mostly, only poems with intriguing titles get read, but this time around I intend to read each poem, trusting the editor, not wanting to miss a good poem, an important poem … to learn from. Reading is research for me, always study. If inspired, I stop reading, and I try to write a poem. In this manner, like a pendulum progressing inexorably forward with each lumbering swing as the world creeps through space, I have been a prolific writer, and well-read, too.

So, why don’t I quit? I’m not in school. I seldom get more than a contributor’s copy for my efforts. Well, I think it is inertia … yes, that is why I still write. I have put in too much time to quit now. And I hear you arguing with me—like a remedial English teacher proofreading a slow student’s work, saying, “Why did you ever start writing in the first place … if you don’t like to read? Dunce! Nincompoop! Why produce writing—work, work which you, by definition, say that you don’t like?”

The answer: I wanted to validate my life, to give a deeper meaning to my experiences, my haphazard life, my astonishing life, my great life! And, of course, to express my unrelenting ennui … and love, such as it is.

Dana Stamps, II

Dana Stamps, II, is a bipolar poet and essayist who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cal State University of San Bernardino, and has worked as a fast-food server, a postal clerk, a security guard, and a group home worker with troubled boys. A Pushcart nominee, poetry chapbooks “For Those Who Will Burn” and “Drape This Chapbook in Blue” were published by Partisan Press, and “Sandbox Blues” by Evening Street Press.